Does ISIS Threaten the United States? – The First of a Series

The last few months have seen a lot of media chatter about ISIS, the Salafist Muslim extremist group that has taken over large portions of Iraq and Syria. Since ISIS beheaded two American journalists a few weeks ago, the volume has risen significantly. Much of the rhetoric asserts that ISIS is a direct threat to the United States. This is an interesting situation where a President wants to go to war light, but there are notable dissenters on both the left and the right. So is ISIS a threat? Should the U.S. do something about it as a result? In this post, we will look at some of the problems in considering whether the U.S. should attack ISIS because it poses a national security threat. (This is a separate question from whether the international community has a humanitarian responsibility to militarily protect Iraqis and Syrians from ISIS. This post only discusses whether U.S. military action is warranted due to a threat to the homeland.)

The first thing to do in looking at ISIS is to set aside the violent images and hawkish rhetoric that may come to mind when you hear its name. This is important not because ISIS is the victim of some media conspiracy to tarnish its image, but because the images being circulated are so horrifically violent, cruel, and merciless that people dwelling on those characteristics are prone to forget to ask some very important questions: Can they actually reach us? If so, in what way? Who else might they reach and how?

The question of whether the potential for an ISIS attack on the USA as a sufficient justification for commencing pre-emptive hostilities was the topic of an online conversation I recently found myself in. People were talking about whether the notion that the U.S. doing nothing could be the best course of action. Someone dismissed the idea out of hand, noting that Australian law enforcement had recently foiled an “ISIS plan” to kidnap “people” and film their beheading. This seemed to be all that person needed to know to tell her that U.S. military action was needed and warranted. I believe this kind of response illustrates well the danger of focusing on the sensational aspects of ISIS.

To see why, let’s look at the Australian event. The goal was to kill one person, not “people,” but when we fear something, its power is often blow out of proportion to the actual danger posed. Media can powerfully mislead in this area, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Second, there does not appear to be much evidence that the Australian event was an “ISIS plot.” The culprits appear not to be ISIS members, but rather domestic radicals who had communications with another Australian, who had previously traveled to Syria and joined ISIS. It seems the fellow in Syria had risen up the ranks and, in his communications with the culprits, had encouraged them to do something to further the cause of jihad at home. That is a concerning development. But it is not an “ISIS plot” and it establishes only a low-grade link between the beheading plan and ISIS as an institution. It doesn’t show any planning, control, or direction by ISIS of activities on Australian soil. Similarly, very few analogous events have popped up in the West. What this event does show is the propensity of ISIS to inspire like-minded jihadists to put action to aspiration. It’s not as if ISIS is a good organization, but we should be careful not to get fooled into thinking it is more than it actually is.

In Part Two, we will look at what terroristic capabilities ISIS needs to attack the U.S.